I spoke at length with an F-22 pilot this summer, with respect to his bird (was a Tyndall F-22). I asked if it was an training bird. He said yes it's been used for that but.... all F-22's are combat capable.

So do the training birds just not have the latest updates? Meaning they can still fight, but aren't wired for the 9x etc yet??

mixelflick wrote:I spoke at length with an F-22 pilot this summer, with respect to his bird (was a Tyndall F-22). I asked if it was an training bird. He said yes it's been used for that but.... all F-22's are combat capable.

So do the training birds just not have the latest updates? Meaning they can still fight, but aren't wired for the 9x etc yet??

Yes they are talking about bringing them "up to" the upgrade level of the rest of the fleet.

tailgate wrote:Yes, all Raptors are "combat" coded, but front line aircraft will get the latest greatest software and gadgets.

Thanks much. I guess when you have so few of them... Which reminds me.. The Soviets used to have a rule about anything flying (even experimental or prototype birds) ... had to be able to defend the motherland if attacked. Even if I meant ramming an enemy aircraft. Any idea if the Russians still mandate that today?

In any case, I'm stoked about these upgrades and more $ going into bringing the whole fleet up to snuff. We don't have many, but from what I gather it doesn't take many for our enemies to second guess themselves..

tailgate wrote:Yes, all Raptors are "combat" coded, but front line aircraft will get the latest greatest software and gadgets.

Thanks much. I guess when you have so few of them... Which reminds me.. The Soviets used to have a rule about anything flying (even experimental or prototype birds) ... had to be able to defend the motherland if attacked. Even if I meant ramming an enemy aircraft. Any idea if the Russians still mandate that today?

In any case, I'm stoked about these upgrades and more $ going into bringing the whole fleet up to snuff. We don't have many, but from what I gather it doesn't take many for our enemies to second guess themselves..

Personally I never heard that. When I did my tour thru Bitburg AB the rumor was that some eastern block front line units were so bare and under resourced they had no weapons to hang on the jets.......

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that this is only the journalistic interpretation of the facts. What it probably is, is an 11 year program to upgrade the entire fleet with all these new gadgets (which includes major radar upgrades etc), and these 36 are simply part of this package, and would be upgraded to that same level. So since the entire upgrade may take 11 years, then it would nominally take so for them as well.

11 years implying the full fleet will be done in 11 years. 11 years isn't the time when they start actually putting stuff on the planes, but includes the time to develop and test the technology etc., which may be several years in itself.